still got it ;)

"First, utterance meaning might be identified with the meaning that a suitably informed receiver would ascribe, as intended, to 'an idealized [utterer], an [utterer] who can be held responsible for everything in the [utterance], being aware of all relevant features of context, conventions, and background assumptions, an [utterer] for whom we may imagine that everything is there by design, on purpose. Second, utterance meaning might be identified with the meaning that a suitably informed receiver would ascribe, as intended, to the actual utterer, given the evidence such a receiver would possess precisely in virtue of being 'suitably informed.' In this case, meaning depends on the ascription of hypothetical intentions to the actual utterer, whereas in the former case, we are ascribing intentions to an idealised hypothetical utterer."
(David Davies, Aesthetics & Literature p86)

Today I read these three sentences, smiled, and placed a sticky post-it flag on the page right next to them so I could find this quote again. It said exactly what I was looking for, and I knew I'd want to locate this passage again easily.

The exciting thing about this moment was that I realised I could still read this kind of theoretical literary scholarship and make sense of it...

I used to be able to munch up big lumps of this stuff when I was a PhD student but working at university keeps one busy with teaching, writing and reading 'instrumentally' (as my very clever friend Nadine puts it, perfectly describing the process of reading bits of books and parts of essays in order to scoop out the bits I need to fit with my project and not getting back to the rest of it). I've been a bit worried that I would have lost my ability to work with material written like this - and although I don't think it's necessarily a skill everyone in the world needs in order to survive, I also don't discredit the value of this kind of writing just because it's not, well, plainly written. Sometimes, as my friend Jolisa used to say, something is written in a complex way because it's a complex idea!

Now I'm on sabbatical I'm reverting to my PhD student self, a bit like the curious case of Benjamin Button but with a lurch back to ten years ago and no moving further back since then. (Thank goodness - I wouldn't want to try to read the above sentences as a 12 year old!) I'm keeping crazy late-nite hours, I love writing in my PJs, I eat randomly, I go to the library and want to take home everything off the shelf.

But can I still read like my PhD self? Or is that kind of writing too hard for me now, seeing as I've been so out of practice?

This quotation above is a complex idea, but it's one that in which I'm interested. When I'm trying to work out what a Maori way of reading a Maori poem might be, do I assume that the 'Maoriness' of the poem rests with the writer (who has deliberately put in the writing every single thing that I as the reader identify as 'Maori'), or do I assume it rests with me as the reader (and my knowledge about Maori stuff which means I can spot the Maori stuff when I see it, whether or not the writer was intentional in putting it in the text)?

I don't think I'll ever write such a 'theory-ish' book, but this kind of writing puts me in touch with ideas that help me think better thoughts. For tonite, I'm just stoked that I've still got it!

Who else has still got it?

The Warriors.

Manu Samoa.

Oh, and John Campbell for getting behind the fundraising to pay the extortionate $10K the International Rubgy Board fined Samoa because one of their players used the wrong brand mouthguard. (The little matter of England illegally swapping a ball in the middle of another game? The IRB turned a blind eye to that.)

The IRB definitely doesn't still have it.

Rugby? Does rugby still have it? Part of me wants to say yes, for the sake of Grandad and my uncles (Uncle Fatty, Uncle Martin, Uncle Alan and so on) but to be honest, with this kind of bigotry undermining the sport at every turn, it's getting more difficult.